Oh no!

 From this morning's Washington Post: 

Amid concerns the rise of artificial intelligence will supercharge the spread of misinformation comes a wild fabrication from a more prosaic source: Amazon’s Alexa, which declared that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Where am I going to get my news now?

OK, right, it's serious, I guess. 

Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the Jan. 6 committee, called Alexa’s assertions nearly three years after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol “alarming.”

And it's going to get worse. Buckle up.

{Alexa was apparently led astray by some demented answer provider. Alexa should be a little more careful about the company she keeps.)

If you have keys to the kingdom, the Washington Post story is here.

As it was, is it?

AI Chatbots Are Learning to Spout Authoritarian Propaganda

Seventy percent of the world’s internet users who live in places where the state has blocked major social media platforms, independent news sites, or content about human rights and the LGBTQ community,

And too many more lining up to join that club.

In the early days of the Internet there was a great deal of utopian optimism about the network's ability to surmount the restrictions of governments — note this Wired piece about John Perry Barlow and his Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace — but now things seem to be up for grabs. Barlow remains a little more optimistic than I.

But still there's hope.

We have not begun to see the silliness

Taylor Swift is ‘only person’ who could defeat Trump in 2024, ex-aide Alyssa Farah Griffin declares

[Story from the New York Post.]

Or…I hear the House is looking for a new speaker. Would they consider a singer?

This is nuts (and a little crazymaking)

The rudderless GOP careens toward 2024

McCarthy’s undoing leaves the only part of government Republicans control rudderless, making it harder to operate day-to-day, let alone tackle big challenges.

Stories all over the American news media (this one from Politico) go out of their way to imply it was the Republicans who caused chaos in the House of Representatives — a chaos so overwhelming it might end in shutting the whole country down in little more than a month — when in truth it was the Democrats who did that. Only eight Republicans voted with the Democrats to oust McCarthy. Two hundred and ten Republicans voted to keep him.

UPDATE:

Thursday, 10/5

This from a NYTimes editorial this morning:

The U.S. Capitol may be perched on a hill, but it is understandable why so many Americans look down on it.

One of the main reasons is that their Congress, which ought to be a global beacon of liberal values, continues to succumb to self-inflicted paralysis. How else can it be that fewer than a dozen lawmakers from the outer fringes of the Republican Party are holding one of the world’s oldest democracies hostage to their wildest whims?

On Tuesday a small group of Republicans effectively shut down all business in the House when they voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

And then, almost parenthecally:

Though 210 of 218 House Republicans supported him, he lost his job when just eight voted against him, joining all Democrats who voted.

Thereby giving the game away. 

The barbarians at the gate

 And no, I'm not talking about the U.S. House of Representatives although…now that I think of it, maybe later. But not now. Now I'm talking about AI.

The latest iterations of Apple's operating systems has AI infused into various corners — in Siri (which works for me, more or less) and in apps that require writing, such as Apple Mail and Messages. Those are the ones — the writing ones — I'm going to war with.

They are attempting to forecast what the next word or two will be in every sentence, and it bugs me they're so often right. That means it thinks what I'm going to say next is just what everybody else would say, and has said, ant that has to stop.

With a cup of coffee, maybe…

Dunkin' unveils $100 inflatable Halloween donut as tall as a person

The spider doughnut is an orange-frosted doughnut with a chocolate-glazed Munchkin decorated like a spider nestled in the middle.

 It's supposed to be scary.

Not too late

 It's Fat Bear Week

(Meant to note this yesterday but my reminder disappeared somehow. Thanks for the backup, Shawn 👍)

What happens to Yurchenko then?

Simone Biles makes history with Yurchenko double pike at worlds, will have it named for her

Biles is already the best in the world, a four-time Olympic champion who’s won more medals, and more gold medals, at the world championships than any other gymnast.

Yurchenko is a Russian gymnast who already has a bunch of vaults named after her, so maybe she can spare just one. This one is apparently the hardest one.

So that's clear, right?

It's Banned Book Week

 So read one.

Here are some good choices.

Preview

Two of the NFL’s best teams will meet Sunday in Orchard Park, N.Y., as the Buffalo Bills get their chance to slow the breathtakingly swift offense of the Miami Dolphins.

And perhaps the league’s two worst teams will square off in Chicago as the Bears and Denver Broncos vie to see who can get into the win column.

H/T Washington Post 

Also from the same newspaper:

The IEA predicts that the world will have to triple renewable energy capacity in just seven years to cut fossil fuel demand by 20 percent.

 Watch the Bills play the Dolphins and hope for the best.